Vanguard’s Fatal Character Flaw

I have found the biggest flaw in the whole Vanguard character creation process yet.  This is huge.  This will be a deal killer for many potential players.

After some effort I have pretty much decided that you cannot make a hot looking female character.

I have been able to create a wide variety of female characters, but never one that was very pleasing to the eye, much less a knock out.

I can make an average looking female character.  I can make an ugly caricature of a female character.  I can make an emaciated Eastern European runway model.  I can make a sturdy Bauernhofmächen, complete with Dolly Parton chest proportions. (You can put those on the runway model too, but it is scary.)

But none of them are pleasing to the eye.  They all look vaguely like they should be in a column of refugees.  If this were an MMO set it a displaced person’s camp in 1946 Europe, the models would be fine.  But none of them are very Heroic.

Now, this all sounds very sexist, and it is.  But I do not think that Guild Wars could have moved 3 million boxes with character models that looked like this.  (I would be interested to know how many people bought Guild Wars and the expansions because of the promise of a new, hot female archtype in every box?)

Of course, I could be wrong.  You might be able to make a hot female avatar in Vanguard.  Nobody ever uses my name and the words “artistic talent” in the same sentence without the words “has no” in front of them.  Perhaps my hamfisted efforts to create an appealing female avatar do not adequately represent the Vanguard character creation tool.

So I challenge any reader to send me a screen shot of a female player character that could be considered “hot.”

In the mean time, since there could be months to go before Vanguard gets to release, I hope that the character creation tool is one of the areas that they have on the “To Be Polished” list. 

11 thoughts on “Vanguard’s Fatal Character Flaw

  1. Bman

    “(I would be interested to know how many people bought Guild Wars and the expansions because of the promise of a new, hot female archtype in every box?)”

    /raisehand

    I agree completely. The avatars in VG (even the male ones, and who even CARES about them?) are anything but attractive. I might even go so far as to say they epitomize the failings of Western MMO character design.

    And let’s not even talk about the furries.

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  2. Stargrace/Silverstep

    Not sure if this is true or not, but I had heard the beta version of Vanguard was not using the “actual” models or animations, due to (insert some reason here, like 3,500-4,000 people being on the two beta servers they have up right now). Granted this is pure rumor since I’m not playing beta (nor will I be jumping right out there to play the live version either). Anyone else heard word of this? Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope that your characters (once live) actually won’t look like the….. unique …. ones we’ve had the pleasure of seeing so far.

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  3. Wilhelm2451 Post author

    I hope you are correct about these not being the final models or animations.

    I do not yet have access to the beta forums yet (or, frankly, any idea where they are… this was not covered in any detail when grabbing Beta 5), so this might be covered in detail somewhere. I certainly hope that it is, because I am not joking with this post.

    Reading a review of Guild Wars at one point that said all the female avatars looked like super models (and something equally nice about the male avatars, but I skipped over that) made me want to go grab a copy of the game.

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  4. Saylah

    The whole males playing females in abundance is testiment to the fact that looks matter. I didn’t find the models unattractive and I think the ones I created looked okay. But I’ve created many characters using The Sims modeler which is similar to what VG implemented, so I knew exactly which attributes I wanted touched.

    Beyond that everyone moves very stiffly – ole stick up the butt moves. Maybe that would improve if the game wasn’t so lag laden. I’m just completely underwhelmed with the visuals as a whole. I hear people talk about beautiful areas and I’ve seen some nice shots. Yet I haven’t been in an attractive zone even when I turn up the graphics up to look around – cuz I certainly can’t move with them on high. :-(

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  5. Wilhelm2451 Post author

    Well, watch this space anyway. I plan to keep poking at it for the time being.

    It is still beta and while, to me, the end of Q1 seems darn close, bigger miracles have happened, and it might be worth a bit of a slip just to get launch further away from Burning Crusade.

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  6. Wilhelm2451 Post author

    Ah cool, thanks! I looked at some of that thread and it does appear that you can make some very passable female characters, though a few in the thread (and not the joke ones) were more than a little off all the same.

    I’ve seen people complain that no skill is required for MMOs, but I don’t think this is quite the answer they were looking for.

    Now I’ll have to go back and try again.

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  7. Wilhelm2451 Post author

    And most of those shots in the forums had obviously not moved the boob inflation slider all the way to the right. Most of those chests could have been bigger, but people were showing uncharactaristic restraint.

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